/ rent; NAmE / noun , verb
—see also rend verb
■ noun
1.
[ U , C ] an amount of money that you regularly pay so that you can use a house, etc. :
How much rent do you pay for this place?
The landlord has put the rent up again.
a month's rent in advance
a high / low / fair rent
( BrE )
a rent book (= used to record payments of rent)
➡ note at rate
—compare hire noun
2.
[ U , C ] ( especially NAmE ) = rental (1)
3.
[ C ] ( formal ) a torn place in a piece of material or clothing
•
IDIOMS
- for rent
■ verb
1.
rent sth (from sb) to regularly pay money to sb so that you can use sth that they own, such as a house, some land, a machine, etc. :
[ vn ]
to live in rented accommodation / housing / property
Who do you rent the land from?
[also v ]
2.
rent sth (out) (to sb) to allow sb to use sth that you own such as a house or some land in exchange for regular payments :
[ vn ]
He rents rooms in his house to students.
The land is rented out to other farmers.
She agreed to rent the room to me.
[ vnn ]
She agreed to rent me the room.
3.
[ vn ] ( especially NAmE ) to pay money to sb so that you can use sth for a short period of time :
We rented a car for the week and explored the area.
Shall we rent a movie this evening?
—compare hire verb (1)
4.
[ v ] ( NAmE ) to be available for sb to use if they pay a particular amount of money :
The apartment rents for $500 a month.
••
BRITISH / AMERICAN
rent / hire / let
Verbs
You can hire something for a short period of time ( BrE only), but rent something for a longer period:
We can hire bikes for a day to explore the town.
•
We don't own our TV, we rent it.
In NAmE , rent is always used. It is sometimes now used in BrE instead of hire , too.
The owners of a thing can hire it out for a short period ( BrE ):
Do you hire out bikes?
Or they can rent ( out ) / let ( out ) a building, etc:
We rent out rooms in our house to students.
Outside a building you could see:
To let
( BrE ) •
For rent
(especially NAmE ).
To hire can also mean to employ somebody, especially in NAmE :
We hired a new secretary.
— see also lease
v.
Nouns
The amount of money that you pay to rent something is rent or rental (more formal). When you hire something you pay a hire charge ( BrE ). On a sign outside a shop you might see:
Bikes for hire
( BrE ).
— see also let, lease, hire
n.
••
WORD ORIGIN
noun senses 1 to 2 and verb Middle English : from Old French rente , from a root shared by render .
noun sense 3 mid 16th cent.: from obsolete rent pull to pieces, lacerate , variant of rend .